


It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

by ultraradiance (velllichor)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Airport Delays, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, Romance, travelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 00:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13306137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velllichor/pseuds/ultraradiance
Summary: Nothing brings two people together like being stranded at an airport on Christmas.





	1. Sir, your flight has been delayed

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  banner by shilo @ 1DFF proboards

Harry Styles was in deep shit, shit so deep that it completely engulfed him and almost strangled him to death. This could not have been happening to him, it just couldn't have. After all of these years and the universe was still screwing with him.

Harry had had to practically beg his boss to get a week off from work just so that he could spend time with his family and now he was being told that he wasn't even going to make it in time for Christmas! All of those long hours and this was all that it had come down to.

"Sir, like I told everyone else, your flight has been delayed until December 26," the flight attendant, or whoever the woman was, repeated once more.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no my flight cannot be delayed, this is not happening to me," he said, clutching his passport in his right hand tightly, knuckles turning white with the amount of force that he was exerting. His mum was going to castrate him, that's what she was going to do, she was going to castrate him for missing Christmas. He would never make it to the end of the year.

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing that I can do to help you. If you would like, I can make a few calls and see if I can find you a hotel to stay in," the flight attendant offered.

"How is my flight cancelled?!"

"Sir, there is a blizzard going on outside, no flights are flying out tonight or tomorrow, it's unsafe," the flight attendant said. Harry could see that she was slowly losing patience with him, and by the grunts coming from the man behind him in line, so was everyone else. He didn’t care, he wanted to get home for Christmas! 

"Nonsense, it's just some light flurries!" Harry exclaimed dismissively. 

"Sir," the flight attendant deadpanned, one eyebrow raised in response. She looked out of the window behind her and Harry followed her gaze. 

Okay, so maybe it was slightly more than light flurries. Harry couldn't see two feet past the window and there was ice already crawling up the edges of the window. You couldn't see much of the snow but it was all there, hiding in the massive white cloud of fog that blocked the view of the tarmac.

"But how is this even possible, it was fine a few hours ago," Harry went on weakly, burying his head in his arms on the desk.

"Sir, this is Canada, even Toronto is not exempt from blizzards, it is, after all, winter," the flight attendant went on. Maybe the blizzard had been coming the entire time but he simply hadn’t noticed, although how he could’ve missed a huge storm building, Harry was not entirely sure.

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer of the hotel,” Harry finally said with a sigh.

“As soon as I help everyone else waiting in line, I’ll let you know what I can find,” the woman said with a relieved smile. Harry walked off with his shoulders hunched and sighed. This Christmas was supposed to have been perfect, everything was supposed to have gone to plan. Harry had talked to his parents about visiting for Christmas, and they had all talked about what happened when he had left two years ago.

When Harry had pictured finally coming home, it never really involved being stranded at an airport because of a blizzard. He thought that he would climb out of a cab with his bags in his hands, and his sister would come running out of the house in just her pajamas and give him a hug. Harry saw his mom and stepdad also hugging him and telling him how much they missed him and they would spend the rest of the night having tea and hot chocolate and telling stories in front of the fire.

But instead, Harry was stuck trying to find a seat to sit on in an airport crowded with people and their baggage while mother nature raged on outside. There was no one that he knew anywhere in the room, none of the strangers exactly gave off the feeling of being warm and loving people. In fact, the only thing that was warm about the place was the room temperature because of the combined body heat of everyone in the room.

This was a nightmare.

Everyone that Harry made eye contact with gave him this look as if daring him to force them out of their chairs. In the end, he gave up on trying to find a proper seat and instead squeezed himself on the only available piece of wall that there was. He took his jacket off and placed it on the ground, and then rolled up his sleeves. The movement seemed to draw even more attention to Harry. His long and untidy hair had drawn the disapproving glares of mothers with their teenage daughters, who most certainly had no problem with his hair, but now the tattoos had probably branded him as a hooligan and someone to stay away from.

That was perfectly fine by Harry, he didn’t want to talk to anyone at the airport either.

He sighed and let his head fall back and hit the wall behind him. He might as well get comfortable where he was because by the looks of the line that he had left, that lady he had spoken to wasn’t going to be coming with news for him anytime soon. Although to be fair, she had been one of the nicest people that he had spoken to while traveling with Air Canada.

Which reminded him, he was never going to fly with Air Canada. Ever. Again.

First, when he got on the plane and made his way to his seat, there was already someone in it. And when he and the other person had asked a steward if they could help them figure the entire thing out, the steward had been pretty much useless in offering up suggestions on how to solve the problem. The end result was that Harry ended up having to sit near the toilets, a mistake that he hoped never again to make.

He was sure that the smell coming from it could be concentrated and used as some sort of weapon.

And then when he had checked with one of their employees to make sure that his things had made it to Toronto with him, he was told that there was no record of any suitcase belonging to him being put on his flight.

So now he had no clothes and no one knew where his things had gone. Harry had the clothes on his back, and what little he had in his carry on, to keep him warm until he reached England and that was about it. Fortunately for him, he had been smart enough to pack a beanie, some mittens, a scarf, a sweater, and an extra pair of shirts, pants, and undergarments so he wasn’t completely helpless.

But still, there had been school textbooks in his suitcase that he actually needed in order to survive uni and now he was being told that his things were lost?! What if they never found his stuff?! That meant that he would have to buy his textbooks all over again and those things cost a pretty penny, it wasn’t as if Harry shat out money for a living.

So all in all, no, he was never going to fly with Air Canada ever again.

Harry wasn't sure how long he had been sitting in his little corner, all that he knew was that at some point between looking around at all of the people milling about, the children playing tagging and darting around everybody's legs, and the mothers putting their babies to sleep, he had dozed off.

The next thing that he knew, someone was shaking him awake. He groaned and opened his eyes. The first thing that registered was the fact that there were a pair of bright, big eyes barely an inch away from his face, and full lips that were pulled back into a warm smile and displaying the girls pearly whites.

Startled, Harry attempted to back away from the stranger, but the only thing he managed to do was bang his head against the wall behind him. He hissed in pain and threw a hand up to his hair as a reflex.

The girl backed away from Harry and stood up, her smile wider than ever and giggled. Once the pain subsided from his head, Harry took a proper look at the stranger before him.

His first thought was that she had to be some kind of royalty, or a fairy, because he had never seen anyone so pretty before in his life. Her dark skin glowed in the light, this was the first person that Harry had laid eyes on who was actually okay, perhaps even happy, with their current situation.

"I'm sorry I startled you," she said, clasping her hands behind her back. But she didn’t look nearly as sorry as she claimed to be. There was a grin on her face that refused to disappear no matter how hard she tried.

"S'alright," Harry replied as he slowly got to his feet. His butt had gone numb during his nap and it felt like someone had strapped a wooden board to his back.

"You just looked really uncomfortable and I thought I would wake you up to tell you that you can take a nap on the seats since everyone is mostly gone now," she said, pointing towards the seats that were indeed empty. In fact, the entire space was practically empty of people, save for a few stragglers dotted around the large area.

How long had he been asleep?

"Where did everyone go?" Harry asked, confusion evident on his face. Only a few moments ago the place had been close to bursting and now it was almost deserted.

"Oh, they went off to hotels a while ago, everyone that couldn't get a room is stuck here for the next two nights," the girl said.

"So let me get this straight, everyone is off to a hotel, but I'm stuck sleeping on airport chairs?" Harry asked, growing more and more panicked as the seconds went by.

"Yep, join the club of people being left behind!" the stranger said, spreading her arms out and backing away from Harry. He gathered up his own things and hurried after the girl, luckily for him, no one had taken his stuff while he'd been sleeping.

"This just keeps getting worse and worse," Harry moaned.

"Yeah, well, suck it up buddy, we're here until the 26th," the girl said and plopped herself down on a seat and stretched out her legs.

Harry looked around him and sighed. The area had been full of people, life, and warmth before but now that everyone was gone, it felt really lonely and cold. He much preferred the mothers glaring at him in distaste to this emptiness.

"Take a seat my friend," the girl said, patting the seat next to her. Harry obliged.

"My name's Zabeya," she said, holding out one dark, smooth hand.

  
"Harry, pleasure to meet you."


	2. 20 Questions

"Is there any reason why you were so insistent on going home for the holidays?" Zabeya asked, facing Harry.

"Were you watching me?" he asked loudly. And although it shouldn't have freaked him out as much as it should've, he was after all in a public place, it did. There was just something extremely unsettling about hearing that someone was watching you.

"It's hard not to notice someone bordering on hysteria," Zabeya pointed out dryly. Harry had to admit that she had a point, he had gotten so loud that his voice had begun to hurt even his own ears. He gave her his most charming crooked smile.

"Touchè," he said. "I transferred for work a few years ago, and I've missed Christmas with my family ever since I left. I tried to get back to them on time but something always came up and I had to stay behind."

It sounded more like an excuse than a reason if he was being honest. And if his sister Gemma had been with him, Harry was one hundred percent certain that she would've thought the same thing and scoffed in his face. And it wasn't as if he had wanted to miss Christmas either, but doctors didn't exactly get set work shifts. There were times when he would be ready to get into bed only to have someone page him and be forced to go back to the hospital.

"Well, anyway, my mum demanded that I show up for Christmas this year or else I'd be disowned by the family," Harry added this last part with an eye roll. Her mum hadn't actually said the words but Gemma had called him in the middle of the night and just about yelled his ear off demanding that he come home for Christmas. He hadn't realised how much Gemma had missed him until he had rolled off the bed and nearly given himself a concussion because the phone had startled him so much.

"Your family takes Christmas very seriously, doesn't it?" Zabeya asked, a small smile pulling at the edges of her mouth.

"Yeah, we're a really big family and Christmas is that time of the year where everyone gathers together and you can actually see people that you haven't spoken to in months. It's a nightmare too, something always goes wrong."

Harry's house was always bursting with family and relatives around Christmas. There was his stepdad and his dad, his mom, his sister, and just about every cousin, aunt, and uncle that was within driving distance.

One time the Christmas tree had almost caught fire because a drunken uncle had almost knocked a candle over. Another time everyone had gotten food poisoning and good luck trying to find an unoccupied toilet to crap in. That had been the worst one, Harry distinctly remembered standing outside the bathroom on the first floor thinking that he was about to dirty himself right where he was.

"Wish I could spend the holidays with all of my family," Zabeya said with a wistful sigh.

"Are you a small family?"

"No, we're pretty big but we're all scattered around the world so it's kind of hard to always get together," Zabeya said. Harry was beginning to understand that struggle first hand. Not everyone got to fly out to be with family during the holidays.

“I’m sure your family will be okay if you miss Christmas this once, if you celebrate Christmas, that is," Harry said. It wasn’t the most comforting thing that he could’ve said but Harry wasn’t really built to deal with emotions that were not under the umbrella of happy.

“We don’t really celebrate Christmas in my family, we’re not the most festive of people. Sometimes we’ll give each other presents, but usually we don’t,” Zabeya said with a shrug. She tried to pass it off as nothing but Harry could see the look of sadness on her face.

“Why not?”

“My parents just never saw any point to it, they didn’t see it as practical, and we’re not very religious people. We just don’t celebrate it. I didn’t really get a chance to believe in Santa Claus like everyone else,” Zabeya said. If Zabeya's parents didn’t celebrate Christmas because it wasn’t practical, Harry hated to think how difficult it must’ve been for the girl to ask for things.

“That sounds like it really sucks, I’m sorry,” Harry said, and put a hand on the girl’s arm for support.

“It’s okay,” Zabeya replied. “The only thing that I’m sad about is the fact that I get back on Boxing Day, which is the worst, I won’t be able to get a cab.”

Harry couldn't help but grimace when he pictured the chaos that was Boxing Day. The traffic, the aggressive shoppers. He never thought that he would ever see a grown man cry over losing his huge flat screen TV. He'd had to go to the hospital one time because a woman had broken his nose with her elbow trying to get to a pair of shoes. The lines at the checkout was insane and you'd probably get stuck for one hour at the latest. It was like everyone was panicking, people acted like they hadn't seen any of the stuff being sold before in their life. And it wasn't as if the prices were anything to brag about either.

Boxing Day was not worth it, you could barely breathe because the stores were just bursting with people screaming and shoving their way through the store. There was nothing more terrifying than a determined shopper on Boxing Day.

“So what’s been keeping you away from your family for so long?” Zabeya asked. She squeezed her hands into the crease between her calf and her thigh and gave Harry all of her attention.

“Doctor's have the absolute worst times in the world, I don’t know when I’m going to get called into work, and Christmas time is an absolute nightmare especially,” Harry groaned. He'd felt so guilty having to call his mom to tell her that he wouldn't be able to make it in time for Christmas because something had come up at the hospital and he was called in. He never forgot the disappointed sigh at the other end of the line either.

"Aren't you a little young to be a doctor?" Zabeya asked eying Harry with suspicion. She wasn't the only one to have this reaction to him whenever he told people that he was a doctor. It was true, he was young for a doctor, but that's what you get when you've got an IQ in the gifted genius range and skipped a few Years in school.

"Yes, yes I am, but I skipped a few Years in school so it's okay," Harry said.

"So have you ever sent someone to surgery before?" Zabeya asked, curiosity taking over her face. Harry scrunched up his face as he thought back to the countless patients that he had but nothing seemed to be standing out.

"Not as far as I can remember, oddly enough, my coworkers seem to be stuck with that job instead of me, it always seems to fall that way for some reason," Harry said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well that's good," Zabeya said nodding and the two of them lapsed into slightly awkward silence. Harry looked around her to avoid making eye contact with the girl and watched as the people several meters away from him made themselves comfortable in their seats.

"So what's with the twenty questions anyway?" Harry asked.

"Well if we're going to be stuck together until the 26th I figured it would be a good time for me to get to know you and make sure that you're not some criminal," Zabeya replied teasingly, but Harry could see how relieved she was for the silence to be broken.

"How do you know I'm not lying?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"You don't look like the sort to lie," Zabeya responded simply and shrugged. 

"Looks can be deceiving," Harry pointed out.  
  
“You’re working really hard to make me suspicious of you, aren’t you?” Zabeya asked. She didn’t look all that wary of Harry, if anything, she seemed amused. Harry hadn’t met anyone as friendly or as trusting as Zabeya in a very long time, but maybe this was just the Canadian way.

“I’m just sayin, you should be more cautious of people is all,” Harry countered, putting his hands up in surrender.

“Harry, if you were a psychopathic killer, I’m fairly certain that you could’ve lured me away somewhere without cameras and done away with me, no problem,” Zabeya pointed out.

“Well, if we’re going to play twenty questions then I think I deserve my turn,” Harry said.

“Seems fair,” Zabeya said with a nod of her head.

“Okay, easy one, what kind of a job do you have?” Harry asked.

“Oh, I work for a publishing house,” Zabeya replied easily.

“That’s so cool!” Harry exclaimed. Out of everyone in his family, Harry had the most exciting job. For once he could ask about someone's career and show genuine interest in it instead of just faking it.

“I like to think it is, you would not believe how many submission we get every day. Some of them are so bad I begin to question my very existence because nothing could be written that poorly.”

“What’s one of the biggest things that you usually see?” Harry asked. He squeezed his hands underneath his armpits and leaned forward, eyes wide with interest. Zabeya blushed under Harry's intent gaze, which wasn’t that uncommon of a reaction to Harry. When Harry was interested by something, he gave it his full attention, and most people weren’t used to that level of intensity.

“Gaping plot holes throughout the story, annoyingly perfect main characters and their lame romantic interests, a surprising amount of them were crowded with spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors which was quite alarming,” Zabeya said grimacing. Her face scrunched up as she tried to remember other things. She counted everything that she had already said on her fingers and frowned. A split second later, Zabeya's face lit up as more problems came to her.

“Some of them had continuity errors, flat characters, stereotypes so painful that it physically hurt for me to read the manuscript. A lot of stories are just the same plots over and over with different characters to play them out, there’s very little change. I try to pass on the stories that are different from the rest.”

Harry had to agree that it could get a little boring reading the same thing over and over but after all, almost everything had been written already, you were bound to run into similar stories at this point.

“At least people are getting the recognition they deserve,” Harry said. It was all he could say considering how inexperienced he was with the publishing world. Harry had never been much good at analyzing literature for hidden meanings and figuring out poetry, his mind had always jumped to numbers and equations instead.

“It’s a lot harder than it sounds,” Zabeya said with a sigh. “People want what sells, and that doesn’t always mean good quality stories, or variety. After all, why bother changing a formula that has been proven to work?”

Harry could picture how difficult it must’ve been. The urge to approve something that was actually, really well written, or to pass on the one that wasn’t as well written.

“Alright, do you have any siblings?”

“Nope, just an only child, but I’ve got lots of cousins,” Zabeya said with a smile.

"Who are you closest to in your family?”

“My grandma on my mom’s side, she’s really funny,” Zabeya said, and her face lit up as she thought of one of the jokes that her grandma had told her. “She’s also got quite the dirty mind on her.”

“Worst mark you’ve ever gotten in class?” Harry asked curiously.

"Fifty-four percent," Zabeya answered promptly. "You?"

"I got an eighty-eight on my maths midterm one time and I cried," Harry heard himself say. He didn't mind telling her the percent, but he wished his brain hadn't tacked on the crying bit at the end.

"Why? That's not a bad mark!" Zabeya exclaimed in shock.

"I was always a little bit of an overachiever, and everyone kept telling me that I was so smart and intelligent so I always expected one hundred percent from myself in everything. So when I got that mark it seemed like I'd failed everyone and like I was stupid. You have no idea how much my friends took the mickey out of me for that one," Harry replied. He was a little uncomfortable at having spilled so much to a stranger and was preparing to put up defenses at any minute.

Instead, Zabeya leaned forward and hugged Harry, completely taking him off guard. Not that he minded, the hug felt nice and Zabeya was just radiating warmth, literally and figuratively. He found himself hugging her back without even realizing.

"So, fifty-four percent, huh?" Harry asked lightly once Zabeya had pulled back.

“In my defense, I was not prepared for the test at all, I was a little blindsided by it,” Zabeya replied with a grin.

Harry was hoping to move on from this talk of school. He didn't want to think back to all of the time that he had paced his bedroom and wanted to rip his hair out out of stress and frustration with himself. He really didn't want to think about all of the times that he had beat himself up for not understanding something on the first try.

Harry shook his head and reached to the ground for his bag. He dug around in the pockets of it for a little bit, pushing aside his glasses in order to find his deck of cards.

He took the deck out of the box, fished out the jokers and began shuffling them.

“Enough about school, school sucked, let’s play some cards,” Harry said as the cards snapped in his hand. Zabeya instinctively leaned away from Harry, there was a dangerous glint in the his eye that was quite common to those that knew him. It usually meant that Harry was entering his competitive zone. And Harry in his competitive zone was a force to be reckoned with.

“O-kay,” Zabeya said uncertainly.

“How familiar are you with the game of Cheat?”


	3. Cheat

As it turned out, Zabeya did not know how to play Cheat. Harry had to explain the game several different ways, but no matter what he did, Zabeya looked as confused as ever. Harry had assumed that the girl would know what he was talking about, it was a popular game among all of the friends that he had ever made and anyone else that he knew. Gemma had had to teach him the game when the power went out in their house one time. There was only so much you could do when your sister insisted on learning a card game with almost no light sounded like a brilliant idea at the time.

"All right, let's try it this way," Harry said. He started to deal out the cards between the two of them. If an explanation wasn't going to work then hands on experience would have to do. Once Harry had split the deck between the two of them, he picked up his cards and made sure that Zabeya couldn't see them.

"We're going to start off with aces, I'm going to say something like 'One ace,' and put a card down. The card I put down could either actually be an ace or a different card, you have to figure out whether I'm lying or not," Harry said and put down a card. Zabeya nodded along to what Harry was saying, a look of concentration on her face.

"Got it," Zabeya said.

"If you wanna call my cheat, you need to say 'Cheat,' if you're right, and I was lying, I pick up the card, or cards depending on how many there are in the pile. If you're wrong, and I wasn't lying, you have to pick up my card, and any other cards in the pile," Harry said.

"So if I'm at something like five for example, I can put down fives if I have them and say something like 'Two fives,' but if I don't, I could put down any cards and still claim they're fives," Zabeya said.

"Correct, I think you finally got it!" Harry exclaimed. He picked up his demonstration card and put it back in his hand.

He had never played Cheat with only two people before, he generally had plenty of cousins willing to play so the game got interesting. Harry wasn't sure if either he or Zabeya would win the game. They both had half the deck of cards in their hand, all it would take would be a quick look through their cards to figure out if the other was cheating.

This would take a while.

The game started out well enough, both of them had enough cards that they didn't have to call Cheat on each other. And then the two of them started running out of cards, and it became increasingly harder to figure out who was cheating. Harry eventually ended up with the majority of the deck of cards in his hands. Zabeya looked absolutely ecstatic to be winning at a game that she had only just learned to play. Harry was busy grumbling under his breath and flipping through his cards to see if she could call Cheat.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," he said as he quickly scanned through his deck of cards.

"Harry, it's your turn," Zabeya pointed out.

"YOU CHEAT!" Harry yelled loudly and pointed at his new friend. Zabeya rolled her eyes at Harry's dramatics and picked up her card again.

"You need to quiet down, I don't want to annoy anyone else stuck in here," Zabeya said. She had her hand over her mouth and was giggling. And she wasn't wrong either, the small group of people sitting on the opposite side of their gate area kept glancing over at the two of them every time Harry got extremely passionate.

"Yes I'm sure it's quite difficult to get quiet in an empty airport," Harry replied sarcastically. They hadn't gone unnoticed by him, but unlike Zabeya, he thought the looks on their faces had been one of envy rather than annoyance. After all, Harry was keeping himself busy, they didn't seem to be doing the same.

"Harry," Zabeya said.

"They can either sit over there and mope, or they can come over here and play cards with us," Harry said. He got to his feet and made his way over to the strangers in a flash, completely ignoring the pleas coming from Zabeya.

Harry was surprised at how bold he was being, he wasn't one to approach strangers and invite them to play a nice game of cards with him, that sounded more like something up his sister’s ally. And yet here he was, marching purposefully towards complete strangers.

Besides, it would make the game more interesting.

"Hey there," Harry said. He crouched down next to the group that was sitting on the ground. It was really only four people, three fourths of them being boys with different shades of brown hair and one girl with fire engine red spiky hair.

"Hi," the girl spoke up once it was clear that none of the boys would offer a greeting.

"Me and my friend over there were wondering if you guys would be willing to play cards with us?" Harry asked with what he hoped was a friendly grin. He wasn't an expert when it came to making friends with strangers, his friendly smiles were often described as grimaces.

Harry looked back at Zabeya, who was making a slicing motion across her neck with a panicked look on her face. Harry winked at her and gave a thumbs up, to which Zabeya replied with a face palm.

The four of them came together, their arms going over each other’s shoulders as they whispered together and thought out their decision. Harry was left waiting for almost two minutes, by which point he was tired of the whispering going on and was about to take back his offer. It was a game of cards for crying out loud, she wasn’t asking them to go on a super secret mission.

“All right, we’ll play with you,” the girl finally spoke up. Harry sighed in relief and got to his feet. The strangers followed behind him in a single file.

When Harry got back with their new friends, Zabeya was busy shuffling the deck of cards. Harry took a seat next to her and gave her a sharp poke to the shoulder.

“Zabeya, these are our new friends,” Harry said, motioning to the four new members of their game.

“Alex,” the girl with the spiky red hair said, holding out a hand.

"Anjo," one of the boys with the brown hair added. He had on funky glasses which kept sliding down his nose.

"Dirk," another added. Harry wouldn’t have trouble remembering this fellow’s name, the bright neon pink shirt that he was wearing was hurting Harry’s eyes, not to mention it was extremely impractical for the current weather outside.

"Sam," the last one added. Out of the four of them, the last one was probably the most normal looking. Yes, he did have on a pageboy hat and was wearing a bow tie, along with a black vest, but a hipster was better than looking like he'd grabbed the closest thing to him when he woke up.

"Do you know what Cheat is?" Harry asked.

"Yes," they all answered.

"Oh thank God," Harry said in relief as Zabeya began to deal out the cards to everyone in the circle.

"Hey!" she exclaimed with a glare towards Harry.

It was Christmas Eve and Harry was sitting in an airport, surrounded by strangers, playing a card game instead of being with his family and drinking some hot chocolate.

The game started out well enough, no one was yelling and everything was moving quickly. And then things escalated. Just like Harry knew that it would. It only took about fifteen minutes before someone ended up with half the deck in their hands as they yelled, "WAIT!" and flipped through their cards. Pretty soon, swears were flying all over the place, playing cards were slammed down with more force than necessary, and Zabeya had even gotten up and left at one point.

Everyone guarded their cards and eyed each other suspiciously as they went around the circle. Harry was winning out of everyone, and he could see people slowly coming to the conclusion of ganging up on and ruining him.

"Feel better?" Harry asked when Zabeya had come back. She seemed a lot calmer than before and picked up right where she left off.

"I've never played a game this intense before," Zabeya said as she put down her own two cards.

"Oh this is nothing," Harry said dismissively.

"You've had games worse than this?!" Zabeya asked as Sam picked up his card again after Anjo called his cheat.

"Oh yeah, my cousins are much worse."

"How much worse?" Zabeya asked skeptically.

"We almost set the house on fire by accident one time," Harry replied nonchalantly. He had warned his cousin to check his elbows but his advice had gone unheeded and the next thing Harry knew, he was trying to put out the curtains because the candle got knocked over.

"CHEAT!" Harry yelled, pointing at Alex, who cursed and picked up the card that she had just put down.

The game went on and on, round after round. Harry won quite a few games, but not nearly as many as he would have wanted to, Zabeya turned out to be quite the threat and took in quite a few games herself for a first timer, a fact that she wouldn’t let Harry forget no matter how much he insisted on beginner’s luck. Alex ended up winning the most games out of anyone, Sam lost the most out of all of them, and Anjo and Dirk weren't too bad either.

The storm outside seemed as if it had gotten even more aggressive and worse as time had gone on. It got darker and darker throughout the day, Harry wasn't sure what the time was, he was too busy rolling on the floor laughing at the pout on Sam's face as Anjo and Dirk teased him shamelessly for the fact that he had lost so many games of Cheat.

"It's almost eleven guys, I don't know about you but I'm going to get comfortable and fall asleep," Zabeya said with a yawn. She raised her arms in the air and stretched until she heard a slight crack in her joints before rising to her feet. She spread out her jacket across the seats that she had occupied, wrapped herself up as much as she could, and closed her eyes.

Alex, Anjo, Dirk, and Sam got to their feet grumbling as they did. They thanked Harry for inviting them to play cards and headed back over to their things. Harry couldn't hide his own yawn and packed up his things as quickly as he could.  
  
He put away his deck of cards, laid out his jacket next to Zabeya's dozing form, and made a makeshift pillow out of the little clothing that he had packed in his bag. He lay down, bag held securely in his arms and pulled his large jacket over him. Little by little, Harry fell asleep, and the last thing he remembered seeing was the snowstorm outside of the airport.


	4. I Woke Up Like This

When Harry woke up in the morning, he was very confused. He knew exactly where he was, and he remembered perfectly the events of the day before, he simply didn’t know what time of day it was. He knew that he hadn’t woken up for no reason, he didn’t have to pee, so the only conclusion that he could come to was that he had slept his needed eight hours and his body was ready for the day.

But it sure didn’t look like it was past four in the morning. It was grey outside, so dark that Harry could’ve sworn that he hadn’t slept for more than two or three hours. He turned his head to look around, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and forced his mind to focus as he did so.

He reached over and nudged Zabeya to see if she was awake.

“Five more minutes and then I’ll go to school,” Zabeya mumbled in her sleep and then turned over. Harry couldn’t help but smile at how cute she was. And then he stopped because it occurred to him that he looked like a creeper.

“Zabeya, wake up, what’s the time?” Harry whispered loudly.

“Ergh, phone in bag, go away,” she grumbled and swatted away Harry’s hand. Harry groped around for Zabeya’s bag and yanked it towards him when he caught hold of it.

“Ouch!” Zabeya yelped as her strap whacked her in the face as her bag flew by.

"Sorry!" Harry exclaimed.

"Why do you hate me?" Zabeya groaned and covered her face.

After much digging, and finding things that Harry wasn’t entirely sure how to use, and was a little afraid to ask about, he finally managed to pull out her phone and turn it on.

"Well, what time is it?" Zabeya asked.

"Oh, it's ten thirty," Harry said, dropping the phone back in the bag and putting it back in its spot.

"What? It's completely dark outside, it can't be," Zabeya replied, shooting into an upright position. She snatched the phone out of a surprised Harry's hands and checked the time herself.

"Oh God, I haven't slept that late in a long time," Zabeya said rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning.

"Wish I had some toothpaste with me but oh well, hygiene can wait until tomorrow. But for now, breakfast is in order, come on," Zabeya said. She threw off her coat and stretched out her limbs before gathering up her things. Harry hurried to keep up with her and ran after the girl who was walking off in an unknown direction.

"We're going to have breakfast?" Harry puffed once he'd caught up.

"Yep, and that means Tim Hortons, follow me," Zabeya said with a grin.

And when they finally managed to track down a Tim Hortons, it became very apparent that plenty of other people were thinking along the same lines as Zabeya. The lineup was incredibly long. Harry was worried he would be stuck in the lineup for an hour before getting served.

“If you want, I can just order for you,” Zabeya said as they waited.

“Really? That’d be great, thanks!” Harry exclaimed grinning. He handed over his money and was about to head off when Zabeya grabbed him by the arm

"Do you drink coffee?"

"'Course," Harry replied. Who didn't? How were you supposed to function in the morning and tolerate people without coffee?

"How do you take it?"

“Triple triple,” Harry replied promptly.

“Damn that’s sweet,” Zabeya said in surprise. She insisted that Harry keep her company while the two of them waited to be served and so they chatted about the weather and how complete crap it was.

Harry had never seen employees look so harassed before in his life. They were all rushing around filling out orders as fast as they possibly could, the thing fuelling them being the fact that they wanted to get rid of everyone as fast as possible. Harry hated to add to their lineup but he didn’t know anywhere else to grab breakfast in an airport so he waited for his coffee and his food before leaving with Zabeya.

The two of them spent a quiet morning together. They ate their breakfast and drank their coffees and talked about anything and everything. Zabeya went on about the movies that she loved, some of which Harry had never seen but he liked how excited Zabeya got when she spoke about the things that she genuinely enjoyed. Harry told her about some of her favourite books, complained about his job some more, and talked about traveling the world some day. It was all of the things that he could never talk to his cousins about because they would all mock him for it.

Eventually they drifted off into silence and Zabeya took out her phone, and somehow managed to connect to the airports wifi. She moved closer to Harry and held the phone between the two of them.

“Since we’ve got wifi, I figured we would make good use of it and watch something, any preferences?” Zabeya asked.

Harry shook his head no. He rarely had enough time to sit through an entire episode of television anymore. If he wasn’t working then he was eating or sleeping or showering, there seemed to be very little time for anything else in his life. He wasn’t all that up to date on the current new or cool shows. But he figured that if Zabeya liked it, then so would he.

As it turned out, Zabeya especially enjoyed Doctor Who, and although he had never watched the show himself despite the popularity of it, he was willing to sit through a few episodes, even if he did end up thinking it was horrible if it made Zabeya happy. And her close proximity had nothing to do with that, nothing at all.

Nope. Nothing.

It was almost three hours of just watching the one show, which Harry had to admit, was in fact pretty interesting and entertaining, before Zabeya had to turn her phone off and find somewhere to plug her charger in. Harry could see why Doctor Who had become so popular with everyone, while it could get pretty convoluted at times, it was pretty entertaining and humourous to watch.

“What do you wanna do now?” Harry asked in the silence.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Alright, let’s hear it, then,” Harry said. Anything would be better than sitting in total silence. The only other option that Harry could see for conversation was serious talks that would lead to talks about feelings and Harry didn’t do feelings, it was why he became a doctor. It didn’t require feelings, just knowledge. Although to be fair, he didn’t exactly mind the warm, tingly feeling inside of him whenever Zabeya smiled.

“It’s this game I used to play when I was a little girl with my friends. What you do is you take off your shoes, put them in a pile, and then you split up into two teams and the leader has to figure out whose shoes are whose, grab them, bring them back to their team and everyone has to shove them on as fast as they can,” Zabeya said. 

“There’s only two of us so teams aren’t really an option,” Harry pointed out. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to squeezing his large frame into the clothes of someone as small as Zabeya either. If he had to put on her sweater, he was pretty sure he would suffocate.

“True, but we can throw in stuff like jackets and sweaters along with the shoes to make it more interesting,” Zabeya pointed out.

Harry wasn’t crazy about the idea but it was either this or nothing, so he went along with it. He gathered up everything that he had and threw it in a pile along with Zabeya’s stuff and slipped off his boots. He and Zabeya stood an equal distance from the pile and faced each other.

“GO!” Zabeya yelled and practically dove for the pile of clothing. She either dug through it or just grabbed the first thing that she could find and started shoving it on. Harry hurried to catch up with his friend but was having trouble squeezing into a sweater that was one size too small.

Definitely not his.

If he wasn’t careful, he was going to rip that sweater in half and owe Zabeya a new one.

For something that was a children’s game, it was strangely addictive and brought out the competitiveness in Harry that usually only came out when he was at a football match. His stepdad claimed to have never seen anyone get as angry during a match as Harry. Not to mention foul-mouthed.

The game went on and on, and by the time that they had exhausted that childish game, Harry was spread-eagled on the floor wearing a sweater that was squeezing the air out of his lungs by the second, and boots that were pinching his feet.

He looked like he was trying to wear the clothes that he had when he was thirteen and just hitting puberty.

“I think this is enough for one day,” Harry said, and tugged the sweater over his head and drew his arms out. He flung it to Zabeya, who in turn lobbed his own boots at Harry’s face. He didn’t mind though, he was too busy breathing in oxygen now that his torso had been freed.

“What do you say to some good old-fashioned sock slides?” Harry asked once he had gotten back all of his stuff.

“You are a genius.”

And for the next two hours, Harry and Zabeya slipped and slid across the airport on their socks and held onto each other for balance. They finally stopped their sock slides once Harry’s stomach gave a loud gurgle. Zabeya immediately pulled out her wallet and started walking away.

“Where are you going?!” Harry yelled after her retreating figure.

“To get us some dinner, wait here!” Zabeya yelled and then she was gone. Harry meanwhile put his boots back not, grimacing at how dirty his socks now were and very aware of the dirt and germs stuck to the soles of his feet.

Zabeya was back within a few minutes, her hands overflowing with food, which she put down in front of Harry before taking her own seat across from her new friend.

They ate in comfortable silence for a while. And then Harry didn’t know why but he started talking about his family and the many disasters that went on during Christmas time and pretty much any other holiday.

It made Harry feel even better when Zabeya laughed in all the right places and actually listened to him. Harry remembered how he would tell these exact same things to his mates, at some point they had become immune and weren’t even surprised when he told them the stories, just nodded and went about their business.

It was nice to have an audience, it made him feel less boring than he thought he was.

“Your family sounds absolutely amazing,” zabeya said with a wistful sigh. “I wish my family was half as interesting as yours.”

“Well, maybe next year you can come and spend Christmas with me,” Harry blurted out without thinking. His eyes widened considerably when his offer registered with his brain. Oh Lord, what had he done? He thought Zabeya was gorgeous and funny and kind but when he pictured asking her out, this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.

“Why, Harry, are you asking little ol’ me out?” Zabeya asked, holding a hand to her chest.

“Depends,” Harry replied coolly.

“On?”

“Whether or not you’re going to say yes.”

“Yes,” Zabeya said with a grin.

“Great!” Harry exclaimed. Wait until his family heard that he was going out on a date.

“How about we set up a date after New Year’s?” Zabeya asked. “What’s your phone number?”

“How about you give me your number and I’ll call you,” Harry said. “My phone broke and I haven’t had a chance to get a new one.”

He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d dropped it down his toilet and then accidentally thrown it out the window and down five floors.

“Alright,” Zabeya said and searched her bag for a pen. She quickly wrote down her number on Harry’s left forearm. “But you better call or I’m going to hunt you down myself.”

He wasn’t sure whether to take that threat seriously or not.

It got even darker outside, which Harry hadn’t even realised was possible, but at least it looked like the storm was slowly beginning to clear up.

The two of them decided to go to sleep early considering their flight was leaving at eight the next morning. Zabeya took her phone off of the charger and packed it away, but not before setting an alarm and then she and Harry set up their jackets just like yesterday before settling down to sleep.

Harry was the first one up the next morning, which was just as well considering the airport was bustling with people. Harry quickly shook Zabeya awake before smoothing out his hair as best as he could and packing up his stuff. Zabeya checked her phone through sleepy eyes before packing up her own things.

They grabbed a breakfast while they waited for the half hour left before they were supposed to board. Harry checked to make sure that he was supposed to be on the flight leaving and only relaxed when his boarding pass got checked and he was sitting in his seat.

Unfortunately for Harry, he was not going to be spending the ride sitting next to his hopefully-soon-to-be girlfriend but he wasn’t going to let that drag down his good mood. He may have missed Christmas, but he still had New Year’s, that was better than nothing.

Harry spent most of the flight fast asleep, which he figured was better than holding onto his seat for dear life through all of the turbulence and thinking that he was going to die any moment. Admittedly, he did have to use the bathroom, which only intensified his feelings of terror. He couldn’t help but think how ridiculous it would be to die in an aeroplane lavatory.

He couldn’t stomach any snacks, otherwise he would’ve made very good use of those paper bags provided in case he needed to throw up. And when the plane finally touched down and Harry got off, he was only seconds away from kissing the ground that he walked on.

He expected his parents, sister, as well as the rest of his extended family to be waiting for him when he got off the plane, but instead, all that Harry found was his sister Gemma, who was glaring at him with crossed arms.

His sister struck fear into his heart with her glares in a way that no one else, not even his mum, did.

Harry ran over to Gemma and grabbed her by shoulders. “Gemma, I need a cellular device.”

“Wow, it’s great to see you too Harry, I'm fine, thanks for asking. You are so very welcome for coming to pick you up and yeah, it's been a really long time," Gemma said sarcastically.

"Hi, yeah, missed you lots, I need a cellular device," Harry said.

"You mean a cell phone?"

"Yes, exactly, hi Zabeya!" Harry exclaimed, hand jumping to her head as Zabeya popped out of nowhere.

"Hey Harry, just wanted to see you before I left and make sure that you didn't forget to call me," Zabeya said with a grin.

"Promise I won't forget," Harry replied making an X over his heart.

"See ya!" Zabeya said and then walked away.

"Oooooohhhhh," Gemma said with a devilish grin and a cross of her arms.

"Don't."

"Harry."

"Shut up."

"I see you kept yourself busy," Gemma went on.

"There was nothing else to do in the airport—" Harry started defensively.

"Except _who_ to do."

"Gemma."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trust me, i know that this is not the most well-written thing out there, i can see all of my mistakes now that i didn't see them before, mostly because they're underlined in red. but still i had a fun time writing this and if you read until the end, i hope you enjoyed reading it at least a little bit.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a really long time ago and i forgot that i even had it when i was posting stories. and i know that the holidays are technically over but it's my last day before school starts so it still counts. anyway, enjoy!
> 
> also no shade to air canada but y'all charge for earbuds and the screens on the back of the seats are trash but it's been a while since i've traveled so things could have changed.


End file.
